No domestic cases of Omicron detected in Russia, Health Ministry says

MOSCOW. KAZINFORM - All the infections caused by the new Omicron strain in Russia have been imported, so far no domestic infections with this strain have been detected, the press service of the Russian Health Ministry told journalists on Saturday commenting on the situation with infections inside the country, TASS reports.

«Russia recorded the cases of COVID-19 caused by the Omicron strain, however, as reported earlier, to date, all these cases have been imported. At this moment, no other cases of the disease caused by this strain have been detected on Russian territory,» the statement said.

On November 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the B.1.1.529 variant identified in South Africa as a «Variant of Concern» and assigned it the Greek letter Omicron. In its statement, the WHO noted that «this variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.» According to the WHO, to date, it has already been detected in 110 countries.

According to Russia’s chief sanitary doctor Anna Popova, by December 21, Russia has registered 41 infections with the Omicron strain.